With it apparently being a Pay-2-play title, and on the consoles no less even, unless the servers are connected overall (HAH fat chance of course), the game is probably going to die out on at least one of them. My bet is on the 360 going out first, unless paying for the game's subscription overrides the need to have a Gold account to play online at all with that game.There's also the matter that almost no P2P MMO exists on a console, at least for long, and those that do end up being more the exception than the rule.

It's also relying on the SyFy show. Last I checked, SyFy isn't exactly the strongest contender for quality content. It has its few shows sure, but more often than not its the channel with the "crap CGI pirahna/dino/shark/thing possible-hybrid-and/or-megasized" movies.

There's also, of course, the question of just how much the two affect each other. After hearing the show is already completely written out, that doesn't really leave much wiggle room I'd imagine, seeing as the shows need to be produced in advance. I'm expecting it to end up being little more than a vanity effect. Nothing really changes, its just a different label/character in place of another. So Commander X died? Well don't worry, Mr. Y here is now Commander, and he has (the same) quests (as Commander X) for you! Or, while we put don't the yellow bugs, now we got red bugs coming out!

This news is ambiguous to me. On the one hand I'm glad to hear that the gameplay is good, on the other I'm disappointed to hear that the story will involve fighting the aliens as opposed to living alongside them. From the news thus far it sounded like it was going to be more of a "District 9" kind of affair.

While I'm always a fan of trying out new ideas and mediums to tell an interactive story, and the idea doesn't seem to be completely undo able, the game itself looks, at first glance, like a ton of things we've seen before. Most precisely a combo of Gears of War and Lost Planet. Expectations are not high for this one.

I think it has a lot of potential, and seeing a sychronous transmedia title like this is really cool, and I think it has a ton of potential. @Cursed - I think you approach it too literally. The game has to be produced in advance as well as the show -- and they are being developed that way so its not like they are just stapling on a game to an existing concept. What I think this will end up looking like will be content releases in the game timed with big events in the show.

I think it will likely end up to be "episodic" in a lot of ways, but without the delimiter of episodes. It makes sense to time the content this way becaus development schedules typically go out 12-18months as it stands, so it's a fairly small task to introduce story elements in line with what's happening in the show.

The scenario you described above with General X and General Y likely won't happen because they are developing the game with the story in mind. They wouldn't switch out a character like that and have them just offer the same quests -- that'd be silly and utterly break immersion in the game and the series.

In terms of the influence of the game on the show itself, that will be scripted. No matter how hard a battle, the gamers will beat it. Playing any game, and the "win" is guaranteed by you playing. They don't have account for if "X" happens, because all games only ever code for when "Y" happens. What I'm imaging is that they release content for like a certain weapon to drop to a single player(s) in game, and then make refernce to a soldier getting a new super-weapon. Or the Hellbugs better a new super weapon that rofl-stomps the player in an in-game battle, and they reference the appearance of the new weapon on the show the following weeks.

The point is there's a TON of ways to do this well, and Trion is actually one of the few studios I think can pull it off.

((Unrelated: In terms of in-house developed television content, SyFy is top notch, and has several contenders amongst the longest running TV shows ever. The bad CGI you are talking about is handled by a different division - the made for TV movies with significant smaller budgets than the TV shows. See shows like Stargate: SG1/Atlantis/Universe)

If the game effects the show in any noticeable way whatsoever, you know damn well there's going to be a ton of griefers out there thinking, what if we manage to lose San Francisco to the bugs altogether? What'll that do to the show? If your in-game character ever gets mentioned on the show, guess who's got a big-ass target on their back? The game is specifically designed to appeal to those people who want to get attention.. and what are griefers if not the epitome of that?